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# 2022-07-10 - Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington | |
A family member recommended this autobiography to me. I enjoyed | |
reading it, and was impressed by the character, maturity, and | |
resourcefulness demonstrated by the author. Below are a few quotes | |
that made an impression on me. | |
# Introduction | |
> His own teaching at Tuskegee is unique. He lectures to his | |
> advanced students on the art of right living, not out of | |
> text-books, but straight out of life. ... Education is not a thing | |
> apart from life--not a "system," nor a philosophy; it is direct | |
> teaching how to live and how to work. --Walter H. Page. | |
# Chapter 3, The Struggle For An Education | |
> The older I grow, the more I am convinced that there is no | |
> education which one can get from books and costly apparatus that is | |
> equal to that which can be gotten from contact with great men and | |
> women. Instead of studying books so constantly, how I wish that | |
> our schools and colleges might learn to study [people] and things! | |
# Chapter 8, Teaching School In A Stable And A Hen-House | |
> Of one thing I felt more strongly convinced than ever, after | |
> spending this month in seeing the actual life of the colored | |
> people, and that was that, in order to lift them up, something must | |
> be done more than merely to imitate New England education as it | |
> then existed. | |
Of his two staunchest supporters, one was an ex-slave and the other | |
an ex-slave owner. Throughout this book, the author gives examples | |
of increasing harmony between survivors of old divisions. | |
# Chapter 10, A Harder Task Than Making Bricks Without Straw | |
> My experience is that there is something in human nature which | |
> always makes an individual recognize and reward merit, no matter | |
> under what color of skin merit is found. I have found, too, that | |
> it is the visible, the tangible, that goes a long ways in softening | |
> prejudices. | |
Chapter 11, Making Their Beds Before They Could Lie On Them | |
> From his example in this respect I learned the lesson that great | |
> men cultivate love, and that only little men cherish a spirit of | |
> hatred. I learned that assistance given to the weak makes the one | |
> who gives it strong; and that oppression of the unfortunate makes | |
> one weak. | |
> Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility | |
> upon [her or] him, and to let [her or] him know that you trust [her | |
> or] him. When I have read of labor troubles between employers and | |
> employees, I have often thought that many strikes and similar | |
> disturbances might be avoided if the employers would cultivate the | |
> habit of getting nearer to their employees, of consulting and | |
> advising with them, and letting them feel that the interests of the | |
> two are the same. | |
# Chapter 12, Raising Money | |
> In order to be successful in any kind of undertaking, I think the | |
> main thing is for one to grow to the point where he [or she] | |
> completely forgets [herself or] himself; that is, to lose [herself | |
> or] himself in a great cause. In proportion as one loses [herself | |
> or] himself in the way, in the same degree does he [or she] get the | |
> highest happiness out of [her or] his work. | |
> If no other consideration had convinced me of the value of the | |
> Christian life, the Christlike work which the Church of all | |
> denominations in America has done during the last thirty-five years | |
> for the elevation of the black man would have made me a Christian. | |
# Chapter 13, Two Thousand Miles For A Five-Minute Speech | |
> I early learned that it is a hard matter to convert an individual | |
> by abusing [her or] him, and that this is more often accomplished | |
> by giving credit for all the praiseworthy actions performed than by | |
> calling attention alone to all the evil done. | |
# Chapter 14, The Atlanta Exposition Address | |
> I do not believe that any state should make a law that permits an | |
> ignorant and poverty-stricken white man to vote, and prevents a | |
> black man in the same condition from voting. Such a law is not | |
> only unjust, but it will react, as all unjust laws do, in time; for | |
> the effect of such a law is to encourage the Negro to secure | |
> education and property, and at the same time it encourages the | |
> white man to remain in ignorance and poverty. | |
# Chapter 15, The Secret Of Success In Public Speaking | |
> The kind of reading that I have the greatest fondness for is | |
> biography. I like to be sure that I am reading about a real | |
> [person] or a real thing. I think I do not go too far when I say | |
> that I have read nearly every book and magazine article that has | |
> been written about Abraham Lincoln. In literature he is my patron | |
> saint. | |
> Somehow I like, as often as possible, to touch nature, not | |
> something that is artificial or an imitation, but the real thing. | |
> When I can leave my office in time so that I can spend thirty or | |
> forty minutes in spading the ground, in planting seeds, in digging | |
> about the plants, I feel that I am coming into contact with | |
> something that is giving me strength for the many duties and hard | |
> places that await me out in the big world. I pity the man or woman | |
> who has never learned to enjoy nature and to get strength and | |
> inspiration out of it. | |
# Chapter 16, Europe | |
> It seemed mean and selfish in me to be taking a vacation while | |
> others were at work, and while there was so much that needed to be | |
> done. From the time I could remember, I had always been at work, | |
> and I did not see how I could spend three or four months in doing | |
> nothing. The fact was that I did not know how to take a vacation. | |
> The second or third day out I began to sleep, and I think that I | |
> slept at the rate of fifteen hours a day during the remainder of | |
> the ten days' passage. Then it was that I began to understand how | |
> tired I really was. These long sleeps I kept up for a month after | |
> we landed on the other side. | |
author: Washington, Booker T., 1856-1915 | |
detail: gopher://gopherpedia.com/0/Up_from_Slavery | |
LOC: E185.97 .W314 | |
source: gopher://gopher.pglaf.org/1/2/3/7/2376/ | |
tags: biography,ebook,history,non-fiction,slave narrative | |
title: Up From Slavery | |
# Tags | |
biography | |
ebook | |
history | |
non-fiction | |
slave narrative |